In all the talk about farm-to-table, nose-to-tail, grass-fed, cage-free, pastured food, you might not have heard of a quieter, wilder side of the local food movement.

Foraging, the art of finding edible plants in the wild, is trending, but it’s obviously nothing new.

Mark “Merriwether” Vorderbruggen of Houston is the author of Idiot’s Guides: Foraging, which was released earlier this year, as well as foragingtexas.com. He's been foraging since he was a child and teaches foraging classes throughout the state.

Idiot's Guides: Foraging, by Mark Vorderbruggen

His parents were children of the Great Depression, so he learned a lot about wild edible plants from them while growing up in Minnesota. “My grandfather made a lot of different wines from different fruits and flowers out there,” he says.

Now many people forage not because of scarcity or hunger, but because of distrust.

Many of classes Vorderbruggen teaches are sold out through the middle of next year, so there is obviously high interest. But what is driving it? He says that many of the people you get “are what you would normally call hippies,” and many others are preppers -- survivalists who are actively preparing for disruptions in social or political order (or maybe just zombies).

“They don’t trust the food that’s available now. They worry that it’s genetically modified, or they are worried about food in the future,” he says.

“But some people are just trying to reconnect with nature,” he adds. “They want a clean, secure source of food, something that hasn’t been messed around with.”

Foraging also has health benefits aside from nutrition. Vorderbruggen loves the physical exertion, the walking around, bending and lifting that “you don’t get pushing a shopping cart.”

Daniel Cunningham, a horticulturist from Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center, forages for cucamelon in Dallas.

On a recent late-summer visit to the Coit Road facility, Cunningham took us around the property to find (and taste) wild plants such as purslane, Texas persimmon, amaranth, ground cherries, beautyberry and cucamelon. Scroll below for a list of common wild edibles and how to use them.

“You can forage pretty much any time in Texas,” he says. “Like the chef movement, we eat with the seasons.”

Dayflower at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center in Dallas.

(Ben Torres/Special Contributor)

Edible yucca leaves at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center in Dallas.

(Ben Torres/Special Contributor)

Foraged Autumn sage at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center in Dallas.

(Ben Torres/Special Contributor)

Daniel Cunningham forages for edible leaves of goldenrod.

(Ben Torres/Special Contributor)

Texas persimmon with ripe (black) and unripe (green) fruits hanging from a tree on the grounds of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center.

(Ben Torres/Special Contributor)

Follow the foraging rules

Before you begin foraging, there are some rules and ethics to follow. Here are some tips from Cunningham and Vorderbruggen.

Ask, ask, ask: Respect the law. Do not trespass, and always ask for permission before harvesting. “This is good because it’s fun to talk to people anyway,” Cunningham says. “Sometimes people laugh, but then they get excited about it.”

Check your environment: Don’t forage by a roadway or even on a highly manicured lawn where chemicals could have been used or where there could be heavy metal or petroleum contamination, Cunningham says. Merriweather adds that in Houston, there are lots of flood areas and a lot of oil fields buried underground, which are not safe to forage from. “Understand the history of the land where you are foraging,” he says.

Identification: Never eat or touch a plant you cannot positively identify with 100 percent certainty, says Cunningham. Many plants are poisonous. And some edible plants look similar to poisonous plants, so when in doubt, leave it.

Know the parts of the plant and how it grows: Timing is critical, as is knowing every part of the plant and which parts are edible. “Knowing if something is edible is one thing, but knowing when to eat it is another,” Cunningham says. Once you know the plant family, sometimes mostly everything is edible. But it’s really better practice to know the genus and species to determine which parts are edible, he says.

Be respectful: Harvest sustainably and minimize damage to the plant. Don’t take all of one plant if there’s not much around. “Sometimes we discourage people from harvesting native plants because we need those to grow out, but the invasive stuff, you could take as much as you want,” Cunningham says. Try to adopt a leave-no-trace attitude. Vorderbruggen has more tips on his website at foragingtexas.com.

You might not like it: Just because something is edible doesn’t mean it’s always palatable, Cunningham says. You can eat it, but you might not like it!

Foraged goldenrod at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center in Richardson.

(Ben Torres/Special Contributor)

Now can we eat?

So now that you’ve found some plants, what do you do with them? Some you can eat raw, others are better sauteed or pickled. Many can be used in infusing vinegars and syrups or making cocktails. The fun is in experimenting.

As far as flavor, some taste “absolutely fantastic right out of the ground,” says Vorderbruggen. “Others have a bit of uncommonality to them. With a lot of wild greens, their flavor may be a bit more bitter or stronger.”

Wild foods also have a much shorter shelf life, so they’ll wilt really fast, says Vorderbruggen, so harvest and eat them the same day.

Many foragers also love pickling and fermenting their finds. A lot of wild greens make really good sauerkraut or kimchi, and Cunningham likes to pickle the cucamelons he finds.

Vorderbruggen uses pine needles a lot. He’ll spatchcock a chicken and put on a bed of fresh green pine needles and roast. “It gives a really nice infused flavor, like rosemary,” he says.

Another one of Vorderbruggen’s favorites: wild onions. “There are more than a dozen different varieties of wild onions here, some grow in summer, some in winter,” he says. “Why buy onions when you can have them for free?”

Learn more this weekend at The Urban Harvest: Foraging in the City, a free class taught by Daniel Cunningham of Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center. 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 29 at 17360 Coit Road. Bring a hat, camera and wear your walking shoes. Register here.